Small-Batch Drum Coffee Roasting
Like Duolingo, but for Small-Batch Drum Coffee Roasting. Tomo turns the whole topic into a game you play five minutes a day, until it actually sticks.
For the part of you with thirty open tabs that never became anything.
21 levels across 4 sections, about 42 minutes end to end, roughly 8 days at five minutes a day. It moves through Dialing In the 2kg Drum, Reading the Roast in Real Time, Shaping Profiles and Repeatability, and The Physics and Chemistry Under the Drum. It assumes you already know the basics.
Free forever · No credit card · iPhone & Android
Key ideas in Small-Batch Drum Coffee Roasting
- A full drum restricts bean lofting and chokes hot air moving through the bed.
- Underfilling reduces bean mass so drastically that probe readings become erratic.
- The 70–80% window balances conductive drum contact with convective airflow.
- Cold green coffee cools the hot metal thermocouple sheath upon charging.
- Turning point merely marks thermal equilibrium between the probe and bean surface.
- The internal bean core continues cooling briefly even after probe temps rebound.
- High initial burner heat scorches bean surfaces against the hot drum wall.
- Facing occurs when conductive heat transfers faster than internal conduction.
- A soak period lets bean surface moisture equalize before aggressive drying begins.
- Flashing water vapor pulls heat from the drum environment endothermically.
- Insufficient momentum going into crack leads to a flat or dropping rate of rise.
- Roasters must enter crack with enough stored energy so momentum carries through.
- Beans retain high internal heat and continue roasting if left hot in the tray
- Rapid cooling tray airflow must chill the batch in under four minutes
- Facing occurs when conductive heat transfers faster than internal conduction
- Sluggish cooling creates baked flavors and dulls origin acidity
You've tried the other tabs
Thirty open tabs. Four facts you actually kept.
You watched. You nodded. By Sunday it was gone.
One answer, then back to scrolling.
Eight weeks. You meant to finish. You didn't.
Tomo gives Small-Batch Drum Coffee Roasting the Duolingo treatment: levels, streaks, and quick quizzes that test what you just learned. That game loop is what the tabs above never had, so it's the one you actually finish.
Here's what playing it feels like
A real question from this course. Take your best guess.
Picture loading your roaster to 100% rated capacity. What happens to the tumbling bean mass?
Get it right to open this lesson and 20 more in the app.
Where Small-Batch Drum Coffee Roasting takes you
Learn to master heat control, airflow, and roast curves on a 2kg drum roaster. Build consistent production habits from real-time sensory diagnostics to cupping table adjustments.
- 1
Dialing In the 2kg Drum
- Baseline Roast Execution
- Managing Thermal Momentum and Rate of Rise
- 2
Reading the Roast in Real Time
- Sensory Tracking Inside the Drum
- Cupping and Diagnosing Roast Defects
- 3
Shaping Profiles and Repeatability
- Profiling for Density, Process, and Brew Style
- Between-Batch Protocol and Consistency
- 4
The Physics and Chemistry Under the Drum
- Drum Aerodynamics and Roast Chemistry
4 sections · 7 units · 21 levels. Built to play, not to enroll.
You pick the voice
Small-Batch Drum Coffee Roasting is taught in the The Storyteller style: every lesson is a story. Want a different feel? In the app you can spin up the same topic in any of Tomo's teaching styles. Same facts, totally different vibe.
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Start Small-Batch Drum Coffee Roasting today.
Download Tomo, search Small-Batch Drum Coffee Roasting, and play your first lesson in under a minute.